Date of Award
11-20-2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Discipline
Arts
Department
Visual Studies
First Advisor
Prof. JACKS Wesley
Second Advisor
Prof. DAVIS Darrell William
Abstract
A growing number of contemporary film critics, influencers, and audiences criticize film remaking, a tested and successful Hollywood practice. The main complaints are a lack of originality, overreliance on repeated titles, and an openly commercial nature. Despite criticism, film remakes have existed for decades and are a vivid and resilient form of recycling under new cultural and geopolitical circumstances. Contemporary film remaking reflects the impacts of globalization, transnationalization, and the rapid development of new media and digitalization.
Nevertheless, there is a tendency to theorize on film remaking, often relying on the dichotomy of the source and a remake or, less likely, on the limited system of titles, based on the same literary or film source. While acknowledging the substantial academic contribution of film and media scholars, the thesis aligns with the research directions that explore film repetitions through the structural lens. This lens allows us to shift from the dependency on the Hollywood-centric discussions to the transnational specificity of other film industries. Additionally, it reveals the drivers behind film remaking, how and why they form specific systems, and whether they grow into some other elaborate structures.
To address such systems and potentially reveal these structures, the thesis proposes the concept of transnational networks of film repetitions as a nuanced tool, emphasizing the ideas that contemporary remaking tends to be transnational and intermedia, driven by specific producing effort and flexibility of their primary repetitive vehicles. On the one hand, they borrow from the existing corpus of homogenous elements, and on the other, they affect the source and related franchise and genre. Simultaneously, the framework suggests how to avoid existing academic restrictions or overextensions created by a reliance on franchising, narrative, or broad intertextual practices.
To properly support these claims, the thesis presents case studies of the East Asian remakes, including Ju-on, Infernal Affairs, and 12 Angry Men. The dissertation is concluded with a specific case of Coen brothers’ Blood Simple and its Zhang Yimou’s remake, The Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop, as not being a “repetitive network” but addressing it from the standpoint of professional networks of auteurs.
Conclusively, the drawn framework suggests a more restricted and nuanced method of categorization of film remaking titles in systems and provides an additional explanation that film remaking is essential for the media industries and has a tendency to proliferate. Simultaneously, it invites scholars to continue the discussions on how to understand the growing number of transnational and intermedia remakes, especially from distinct cultural environments, as systems.
Keywords
film studies, media studies, film remakes, transnational film remakes, franchises, transnational networks of film repetitions
Language
English
Copyright
The copyright of this thesis is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited.
Recommended Citation
Kusaiko, R. (2025). Transnational networks of film repetitions in East Asia: Proliferation and limitations (Doctoral thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from https://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd/270/
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Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, Sociology Commons